A Father’s Day Classic

This morning we had one of my favorite Musers show ever- The Musers Salute to Fathers. I want to repost this about the importance of fathers.

This morning we talked about the importance of being “dad.” I shared the following stats on the air and several people requested I post the info so that they too could share it. So here you go, men. Happy Father’s Day. You’re very important to someone.

63% of teen suicides come from fatherless homes. That’s 5 times the national average.
SOURCE: U.S. Dept of Health

90% of all runaways and homeless children are from fatherless homes. That’s 32 times the national average.

80% of rapists with anger problems come from fatherless homes. 14 times the national average.
SOURCE: Justice and Behavior

85% of children with behavioral problems come from fatherless homes. 20 times the national average.
SOURCE: Center for Disease Control

71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes. 9 times the national average.
SOURCE: National Principals Association Report

75% of all adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers come from fatherless homes. 10 times the national average.
SOURCE: Rainbow’s for all God’s Children

85% of all youths in prison come from fatherless homes. 20 times the national average.
SOURCE: U.S. Dept. of Justice

Daughters of single parents without a Father involved are 53% more likely to marry as teenagers, 711% more likely to have children as teenagers, 164% more likely to have a pre-marital birth and 92% more likely to get divorced themselves.

Researchers of Columbia University found that children living in two-parent households with a poor relationship with their father are 68% more likely to smoke, drink or use drugs compared to all teens in two-parent households. Moreover, teens in single-mother households fared much worse. They had a 30% higher risk than those in all two-parent households.

“Without two parents, working together as a team, the child has more difficulty learning the combination of empathy, reciprocity, fairness and self-command that people ordinarily take for granted. If the child does not learn this at home, society will have to manage his behavior in some other way. He may have to be rehabilitated, incarcerated, or otherwise restrained. In this case, prisons will substitute for parents.”
SOURCE: Morse, Jennifer Roback. “Parents or Prisons.” Policy Review, 2003

Children with Fathers who are involved are 40% less likely to repeat a grade in school.
SOURCE: National Household Education Survey

Children with Fathers who are involved are 70% less likely to drop out of school.

Children with Fathers who are involved are more likely to get A’s in school.

Children with Fathers who are involved are more likely to enjoy school and engage in extracurricular activities.

Even in high crime neighborhoods, 90% of children from stable 2 parent homes where the Father is involved do not become delinquents.
SOURCE: Development and Psychopathology 1993

Adolescent girls raised in a 2 parent home with involved Fathers are significantly less likely to be sexually active than girls raised without involved Fathers.

Fake Girlfriend = Photoshop Bonanza

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Don’t Mess With This Old Man

My ticket to manhood

The barefoot country boy in me loves stuff like this. When I was 10, I begged my parents for a “wrist rocket,” a fancy forked slingshot with a wrist bracket that was all the rage among boys on the edge of liking girls. On Saturdays, the banks of the bayou across from my house would be lined by skinny boys wearing wide grins and giving hell to any turtle that dared to breathe.

When one would pop up, a fusillade of rocks and steel would rain down on him creating columns of water and drawled narration.

“Dayum, d’you see that? I almost hit that son-of-a-bitch!” (Christian southern boys try on cussing like their older sisters try on shorter dresses. It’s highly provisional.)

We weren’t very accurate. The turtles reacted to nearby shots but didn’t suffer from them. Despite our efforts, the turtle mortality rate of the mid-eighties remained stubbornly static. At night in bed, I would go over the shots in my head, replaying them in a montage. It helped me to sleep. And still does. My African safari wears my brain down to a sleepy nub these days. Back then, in the montage, I was wildly inconsistent 10 yr old, but in my dreams I could shoot like this old man.

COLUMN: My Best Halloween

Originally published in Quick on October 25, 2007

When I was a boy, my elementary school had a Halloween Carnival. Not a “Fall Carnival” as certain anti-God liberals have tried to rebrand it, but a good old-fashioned Christian Halloween Carnival with blood and witches and everything.

My second-grade year, I went to the carnival as Casper the Friendly Ghost. I didn’t want to, but compromise is what you learned in families of lesser means.

Back then, you chose your costume from a small section of the “seasonal” aisle in the grocery store and the costumes got cheaper the closer you got to Halloween. I wanted to be Batman, with a fully tricked-out utility belt and a hidden past, but by the time I convinced my mother to take me to Skaggs, there were only three sad costumes with plastic masks swinging from the rack: Wonder Woman, Raggedy Ann, and Casper. Although I felt a certain “freedom” when trying on the Wonder Woman outfit, the rubber band on her mask had pulled free, eliminating it as a functioning unit. Since Raggedy Ann had always scared the hell outta me, I went with Casper.

With my small frame inside the non-breathable one piece in front of the mirror, I complained.

“This makes me look like a baby,” I said.

“You look adorable.” My mom fastened the hospital gown ties in the back. “Look at yourself,” she said. “And if any kid says anything about it, that is their problem.” The unconvincing words of a loving mother.

I sat on the backseat armrest of that big Buick Electra steaming up the inside of my mask, anxious to see the carnival, my friends, and to win things like plastic spider rings and mini-packs of “Bottlecaps.” Once there, I ran into the transformed school surprised to see that teachers existed without the sun, and took in one of the best nights of my short life.

I can still see curled masking tape on the floor for the cake walk (which I won) and the posterboard goblins and black cats taped to the chalk board. I remember my mom talking with the other moms, telling hushed stories with big punch lines as we kids ran around in flammable costumes past the tipsy fathers taking turns with a sledgehammer on an old jalopy for one dollar a hit.

So every year when the air goes crisp, and the elementary schools begin populating their marquees with Carnival dates, I get the hankering to go online and see if I can buy an adult-sized Casper outfit, if only to creep out my mom as I appear at her front door.

Instant Nostalgia: ADIOS, AMIGOS!

See you in hell, folks!

Meeting Willie Nelson

Willie enjoying a cup of coffee

Despite a crushing lack of sleep, I was dragged out of my shelter last night to the House of Blues in Dallas. I’d received an email early in the evening asking me if I wanted to “meet Willie Nelson.” I wrestled with the competing desires buzzing in my head. On the one hand, it was Willie Freaking Nelson, a 79 year old American icon who currently plays his guitar like an impatient monkey with limited muscle control. Correction: An iconic spastic monkey for which I have much sentimentality. You see, my mother fed her children a steady diet of Red Headed Stranger on 8-track as we squirreled down southern highways fighting over who got to sit on the armrest. One the other hand, I haven’t truly slept in three weeks due to cocaine usage. Finally I grabbed my keys and darted over to the House of Blues to meet Willie. I even took a camera.

After being corralled through the back of venue by higher ups, I boarded Willie’s luxury grow lab that doubles as his bus and there he was, standing like a stolid cigar store Indian in the aisle.  He had a blank look on his face and I knew exactly why. He had done this 50 million times and I was about to make it 50 million and one. Oh, and the place absolutely reeked of pot. It was overwhelming. It smelled like the devil’s ass in there. On the little table beside Willie was an opened Macbook, a coffee cup half filled with black coffee, and a little saucer with what look like seeds and stems. I went up and shook his hand and put my arm around him.

“I was hoping to meet Trigger,” I said referring to his famous Martin nylon string guitar.

“Oh, yeah. That’s right,” he said through a smile staring at the photographer taking our picture.

“I wanted to see that prismatone pickup on it. Jerry Reed used them on those old Baldwin guitars too,” I said, clearly going way off the rails. I was talking into the top of his head. He was grandmotherly small. His hair below my chin and in gray braids.

“Yeah. Yeah,” he said with a smile.

“Have a good show,” I said.

“Thank you. Sure. Yeah,” he trailed.

I stepped off the bus in a daze from the stardom and cannabis. Then I looked at my video camera. It wasn’t rolling. Damn. So I made a quick Patton-like battlefield decision. I climbed back on board the bus. After the owner of Raising Cane’s had finished getting his pic with Willie, some guy shouted out “last one!” as I moved forward. I walked back up to Willie and shook his hand again. He didn’t even recognize me from our previous award winning Jerry Reed discussion. As you will see on the video I said something so generic at our second meeting that Willie almost passed out from boredom.  Enjoy the pics and the footage, and pray that I don’t ever generic you to death some day.

I love you, mom.

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Can you believe it? It’s Been One Full Year.

Writer, Dancer

Can you believe it? It’s been a full year since I stopped writing my weekly newspaper column. A lot has happened in that year. I’ve gone through several painful divorces and finally learned how to dance without screaming. (I get really into it.)

Originally, I’d intended to take a about six months off from writing. Just to let my mind recover from the crippling schedule of 400 words a week. To let those word lesions heal. But then six months became a year. And then a year became this paragraph. And now I’m ready, once again, to become Dallas’s premiere humor columnist.

Let’s face it. If there are better writers out there, they aren’t as good as me. Tricky literary tricks such as the passive voice were mastered by me. My prose was so good, editors used to take red pencils and circle big swaths of my writing. Often times offering marginalia such as “Needs work!” and “No!” How cool is that? An editor recognizing that I should get even more work! And sometimes being so overwhelmed by a passage he can’t believe I even wrote it!

Successful Writer Poses with Man in Gray Shirt

Now I just need to find a publication. I’m thinking about a little paper called THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS. Or perhaps a little something called The New York Times Bestseller List. With frequent reader entreaties, I’ve thought about gathering my cornucopia of historic columns into a book form. But I need to take a scrapbooking class first.

Until I firm up my next writing gig, I present to you an encore of MY FINAL COLUMN. I’d forgotten how raw, gut-wrenching, and English it is. Its words still sting like something that stings you when it bites you with its tail, or maybe an insect. Like a few writers before me (John of Patmos, Luke the Physician, Paul of Tarsus) I know what it’s like to write as if taking dictation from God. And I also know what it is like to stop working for awhile and pop back up again (Tom Arnold).

I may have been off my feet for the past year, but by God, I’m ready to scream-dance once again.

Gordon Keith: Final Newspaper Column, August 2011

Shortly before his death, my grandfather told me, “Gordon, never stop learning.” His eyes then widened and went dim as my blade did its work making his final bit of learning that I didn’t like people talking while I watched game shows. But the old man had a point. We should always learn, try new things, and accept the quirky challenges that fall on our paths to salvation. Learning is living. At least that the BS I used on myself when I was tricked into taking this job.

I was forty-five minutes late to my Quick interview. I’d been drinking at home and almost forgot about our early lunch meeting. The Quick Editor in Chief in those days was a guy named Rob Clark and he wanted to meet with me for an “important business opportunity.” I just assumed it was a murder for hire so I said yes. He told me a time, and we agreed on a place.

I strolled into a pre-burned up Terilli’s restaurant at 11:45 and glanced around. The guy in the front booth motioned me over and shook my hand. “Terrell Owens?” I said.

“No. I’m Rob Clark and I want you to write a column for Quick.”

That sentence shocked and confused me, especially since he was doing that tickle your palm with his middle finger during the handshake.

“You do realize that I am barely literate.” I said.

He laughed. “I think you’ll be great. You’ll learn.”

That was over six years ago. I’ve been writing a weekly column ever since. I don’t know whatever happened to Rob. Prison, I suppose.
You know the old cliche “All good things must come to an end?” Well, I thought Quick would last forever if it made it past two weeks. Hip, irreverent, and made of paper. Seemed like a formula for success. For a tabloid or a heart. Plus, I was now writing for them. What could possibly go wrong? Just as in promises between high school sweethearts, forever never lasts.

You hold in your dainty hands the very last issue of Quick. Sad, isn’t it? This little paper that became such a habit for you, and such a source of recreational drug money for me, is turning up the house lights and shutting down the bar after seven beautiful years. I hate to see any print product go away, especially one that publishes a weekly picture of me, but life moves in one direction- forward. If you swim against it, you’ll be tired, miserable and sick of going nowhere. At least that’s the BS I’m telling myself now.

As Quick’s “lead“ columnist for more than half a decade, I’ve seen good and bad. I’ve exposed city graft (“City Graft Exposed” June 12, 2004) and I’ve exposed myself (“Columnist Held in SMU Case” March 10, 2011). I’ve written 318 columns, most of them good to great (3) and a handful of bad ones (315). That’s 125,000 words. Pretty amazing for someone with nothing to say and 400 words a week to say it in.

I really thought I would have quit this job a long time ago because I quit everything I try. Except drinking, and some mild forms of petting, but as I sit down to write my very last column, I feel a little misty eyed.

The hardest part was breaking it to my family. When I told my parents that Quick was closing, Dad asked “what’s Quick?”
“It’s a paper.” I said.

“Oh, that’s nice. What did you do for them?” mom asked.

I told her.

“You’re a Communist? Oh my!” she said, clutching her breast.

“No, mom. A columnist,” I explained, also clutching her breast.

It was awkward.

There’s no way for me to sum up our years together or put anything into perspective at this point, partly because I’m on deadline, and partly because I’m an illiterate who was tricked into doing a column instead of a lucrative murder for hire plot. But I tried. I tried to take the challenge in front of me and do with it what I could.

Thank you for reading. Enjoy your life.

When Shooting a Gun Is Good

Click for excitement

A version of this post appeared last year and it kicked ass.

You take a sip of beer and set your glass down in the clear puddle on the table as the waitress stacks our plates. “Gordon, what can I do to destroy circular inanimate objects and help children at the same time?”

I watch your glass hydroplane across the table and prepare to give you the greatest news of your life. “My friend, you can come shoot sporting clays with me this Friday.”

You begin to cry as you win the lottery and busty women gather to sing your praises. Santa winks at you. The end.

Wanna shoot guns with me? You’re in luck, because my Big Charity Clay Shoot benefiting Big Brothers Big Sisters is this Friday, August 17th. Shooting clays is one of life’s great pleasures and can be damn addicting. The Musers will be broadcasting live, providing handcrafted radio candy. We’ll also provide lunch, prizes, and shotgun shells. All you have to do is bring yourself, your shotgun, and maybe a friend or two. Some people bring their wives and children. Perfect. If you don’t have a shotgun you can rent one from our host, Elm Fork.

Register at bigclayshoot.com. The price is reasonable and supports a cause close to my heart, mentoring disadvantaged kids and introducing them to the outdoors. This is a beautiful world and it’s a shame that some kids have never held a fishing pole or seen a duck fly low over a smoky lake.

This is my 7th year hosting this incredible event. We’ve raised $500,000 for Big Brothers Big Sisters Outdoor Mentoring programs and you can help us raise more.

Click here for more info.

Watch this fine video of Musers blowing stuff away.

The Importance of Fathers

This morning we talked about the importance of being “dad.” I shared the following stats on the air and several people requested I post the info so that they too could share it. So here you go, men. Happy Father’s Day. You’re very important to someone.

63% of teen suicides come from fatherless homes. That’s 5 times the national average.
SOURCE: U.S. Dept of Health

90% of all runaways and homeless children are from fatherless homes. That’s 32 times the national average.

80% of rapists with anger problems come from fatherless homes. 14 times the national average.
SOURCE: Justice and Behavior

85% of children with behavioral problems come from fatherless homes. 20 times the national average.
SOURCE: Center for Disease Control

71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes. 9 times the national average.
SOURCE: National Principals Association Report

75% of all adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers come from fatherless homes. 10 times the national average.
SOURCE: Rainbow’s for all God’s Children

85% of all youths in prison come from fatherless homes. 20 times the national average.
SOURCE: U.S. Dept. of Justice

Daughters of single parents without a Father involved are 53% more likely to marry as teenagers, 711% more likely to have children as teenagers, 164% more likely to have a pre-marital birth and 92% more likely to get divorced themselves.

Researchers of Columbia University found that children living in two-parent households with a poor relationship with their father are 68% more likely to smoke, drink or use drugs compared to all teens in two-parent households. Moreover, teens in single-mother households fared much worse. They had a 30% higher risk than those in all two-parent households.

“Without two parents, working together as a team, the child has more difficulty learning the combination of empathy, reciprocity, fairness and self-command that people ordinarily take for granted. If the child does not learn this at home, society will have to manage his behavior in some other way. He may have to be rehabilitated, incarcerated, or otherwise restrained. In this case, prisons will substitute for parents.”
SOURCE: Morse, Jennifer Roback. “Parents or Prisons.” Policy Review, 2003

Children with Fathers who are involved are 40% less likely to repeat a grade in school.
SOURCE: National Household Education Survey

Children with Fathers who are involved are 70% less likely to drop out of school.

Children with Fathers who are involved are more likely to get A’s in school.

Children with Fathers who are involved are more likely to enjoy school and engage in extracurricular activities.

Even in high crime neighborhoods, 90% of children from stable 2 parent homes where the Father is involved do not become delinquents.
SOURCE: Development and Psychopathology 1993

Adolescent girls raised in a 2 parent home with involved Fathers are significantly less likely to be sexually active than girls raised without involved Fathers.

Goodnight, Sweet Prince

Ray Bradbury
1920 – 2012

Stay Hard, Green Boots.

P1 Featherskill writes:

The recent tragedy on Mt. Everest has rekindled my fascination with man’s attempt to reach the highest point on Earth. What used to be a rare feat has now become somewhat commonplace. For around $50,000, Sir Edmund Hillary wannabe’s can hire a guide and make the trek up to Jesus’ apex. Each year around 1000 people attempt to climb Everest. Of those, about 150 people reach the summit, and at least 5 will die. What’s really creepy is that many of the victims don’t die on the way up, they die on the way down. Imagine that; one moment you’re literally on top of the world. The next moment, you’re out of oxygen and succumbing to cerebral edema.

Due to the high altitude, retrieving bodies in the “death zone” above 8000 meters is nearly impossible. If you die on Everest, you tend to stay on Everest. Although efforts are being made to clean up the mountain, there are still an estimated 200 bodies littered about the area. Some of which are used as guide markers on the way up, as is the case with “Green Boots,” a climber who gave in to the elements and laid down in what became his final resting place.

Be warned that the links below contain graphic, but captivating, content.

Recent Everest Tragedy

Bodies On Everest

Greatest Time Magazine Cover Ever (With Outtakes)

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The Couple Has Been Found

Sean Leonard and Shannon Smith Moore- lovers, ball-havers

The gloating couple that were so happy to get a baseball from my cousin that they made a little boy cry has been found. He is Sean Leonard from North Richland Hills and she is his fiancé, Shannon Moore. They seem like a nice couple that is overwhelmed by their sudden and ultimately undeserved infamy. As we mentioned on the air, the best and most defensible scenario for the couple would be that they were completely unaware of the crying boy situation. That’s exactly what they say. And I believe them.

We should probably afford them the benefit of the doubt. And we should all rejoice that the public outrage internet monster passed over us and selected Sean and Shannon for consumption this time. But your time is coming. Your time is coming.

The Crying Kid at the Ballpark and The Couple Who Didn’t Care

There's no crying in baseball. Unless you're a 3 yr old with his heart crushed by an erection pill model.

This kinda sucks. My cuz, Mitch Moreland, tossed a ball into the stands last night and wishful 3 year old reached out with his glove to catch his piece of America’s Pastime, but NO. There was a May-December duo that got to it first and raised it in a gloating death grip as as the little boy cried his eyes out. Sad trombones.

Now, I don’t know if the kid had a real legitimate shot (the vid moves quickly) but I do know that I would have given the ball to the crying kid. I don’t buy all the bulsh that you have to teach the kid the hard lessons of life- that you can’t cry to get what you want, that he should have tried harder, that finders keepers, blah blah blah… vomit. Give the crying kid the baseball. That woman will have many more adult years to get a ball. The man? Not quite as many.

Video link below.

If you know anyone in Texas’ ballpark, tell that couple who stole the ball from the little kid that we have video! twitvid.com/P3HWY

— Jimmy Traina (@JimmyTraina) April 26, 2012

Wanna See Whitney’s Room?

A sweet clean P1 is staying at the Beverly Hilton hotel today. I commanded her (hot P1 chick) to take a pic of Whitney’s room, so we could remember her music… and spirit. Apparently, security has the room on lock down. Either that or they are holding a movie screening in there.

denied